Flashpoint Fridays 2

A weekly invitation to paid subscribers to write to a prompt and post a short paragraph on the CHAT platform for readers to comment on.

A few new things.

The next ZOOM conversation on writing craft for paid subscribers is on Saturday February 24 from 3 to 4 pm EST. There is no extra charge. I’m thinking we might talk about “the contract” the narrator makes with the reader. What does the narrator offer the reader in terms of interest and pleasure? How do we create a narrator or a character the reader wants to listen to? How do we make sure (as much as we can) the reader isn’t asking, “Why are you telling me this? What’s in it for me to know this?” Everyone who signs up is invited to send ahead a question about anything else concerning their own writing projects for us to consider as a group.

To RSVP to the ZOOM conversation, please write to me here: lauriestone@substack.com.

Introducing small workshops in writing to prompts, open to all.

Each workshop is limited to 8 people. There is an extra charge of $50 per workshop, and you DO NOT NEED to be a paid subscriber to the stack to register. Right now, I have space for just 3 people in a workshop scheduled for SUNDAY MARCH 10 from 3 to 5pm EST. To sign up, please write to me here: lauriestone@substack.com.

What to Expect:

This is a new feature, and it's only for 8 people per workshop. If you want to come and don't make this group, I will place your name on a waiting list for a future workshop.

Here's how this works. Eight of you, plus Richard and me, will gather at 3pm and work until 5pm on Sunday March 10 2024. We'll talk interactively for a while. From our conversation, I'll devise writing prompts for us to play with. There will also be prompts you can bring with you and share and other prompts I will bring. At a certain point--around 20 or 30 minutes into our time together, we'll all break from the group and go off separately and write for 30 minutes. You can't cheat and bring something you've written ahead of time. It must be a piece you create in real time with the energy of the group feeding you.

After that, we'll all gather again at our Zoom places, and we'll read our ten pieces in Slam fashion, one after the next, listening for moments of expression we fall in love with in the writing we hear, and taking notes. During the last section of our time together, we'll go around the group, and everyone will have a chance to mention one or two elements that excited them about the writing of others they heard. In this way, everyone will receive comments from nine people, including Richard and me.

What you can't know ahead of time and that I can assure you is that working with a group this way produces something magical that lifts off. The project of coming together in this generous way is greater than the sum of our individual parts. We produce a collaborative, improvisatory performance that's only for us.

This workshop is for people who think they will enjoy creating something with a group. Everyone will have some light shined on them as well, but the magic is the way we set off ideas in each other and give each other freedom and courage to do things we never would have thought of on our own.

Payment for this is directly to me via Venmo or Zelle or check.

When I hear from you, I'll let you know if you are coming to the March 10 session, and I will give you the addresses for payment. I'll expect payment promptly, once you're confirmed, because cancellations at any stage before we begin will have an impact on the group. The money won't be refundable or applicable to another workshop or to a paid subscription to the stack. If you do have an emergency and can't make it, of course I will understand. The point I am making is it's important to come if you commit to coming. 

Richard and I are looking forward to working with you on this new level.

Another new thing, a recording of me reading the most recent stack post on The Talented Mr. Ripley and True Detective Season 4.

Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley

lauriestone.substack.com/p/the-talented-mr-ripley

Please let me know if this is enjoyable and you would like more recordings!

The first “Flashpoint Friday” was great fun. Subscribers took risks and left adventurous small pieces on the CHAT platform. For some people—Richard and I are among them—writing to a prompt gets the juices flowing and feels like a very low-risk way to start thinking about language and anything else that comes floating up to consciousness. The joy is in seeing what sentence A can generate for sentence B . . . and on from there—not transcribing something you have written “in your head” before hand. It’s action writing in the right here and right now.

To read today’s prompt and join in the fun of posting on CHAT, please subscribe and gain access to the prompt below the paywall.